


Come see me again, my love

by myoue



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Dubious Consent, Guns, Handcuffs, M/M, police officer eren, serial killer Levi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2014-09-26
Packaged: 2018-01-19 23:44:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1488586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myoue/pseuds/myoue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren is a police officer and Levi seems to be cozying up to him rather flirtatiously. The thing is, Levi is a serial killer who also considers fucking before buying dinner to be an appropriate maneuver of love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> forbidden lust and some stupid cheesy lines  
> though imagine eren being called "officer-kun" or levi being called "killer-san" omg

His anxiety doesn’t let up in the slightest when the gun is pointed at him.

He doesn’t have time to reach into the holster in his jacket before the safety of the pistol in front of him is pulled back to a click, and Eren takes it as a signal to reluctantly raise both of his hands above his head.

“Back again, officer?” Levi says, wiping a thumb over the corner of his lips where a splash of blood is smeared. “You’re quick as always.”

His eyes narrow at the dead body lying slumped against the brick wall of the blackened alleyway from where Levi is standing. Feeling the wet of the rain hitting his head and dripping down his face, he refuses to blink, refuses to let Levi anywhere out of his sight. “It’s my job,” Eren replies with a subtle sneer.

Levi chuckles, dark and sinister. "You may be even more obsessive than I am."

“I am when it comes to this,” Eren says, letting himself slowly blink away the water that gathers atop his eyelashes before they threaten to spill over and blind his vision.

“When it comes to me?” Levi smiles a sick smile. Eren grits his teeth. “That’s very flattering.”

He keeps his eyes trained on Eren’s, razor sharp and focused to react to anything Eren might pull. Eren knows from a past of broken arms and bullet wounds to the shoulder that Levi’s reflexes are not to be trifled with.

“I’m going to ask you to put the gun down,” Eren states, unwavering, trying at least to use reasoning even though he knows it's likelihood of effectiveness is close to non-existent.

He's proven true when Levi’s arm doesn’t move. “Yeah? Or what?” he taunts, stepping closer to Eren inch by inch. Eren stands his ground.

“Put your hands behind your back, and turn yourself in.”

“You’re in no position to say jackshit.” Keeping the gun pointed at Eren, Levi turns his head slightly to spit at the ground before he’s looking back up casually as if Eren poses no threat. Eren kicks himself internally for missing the chance to challenge that belief. “What is it you really want to say to me?” Levi continues.

Eren’s mind has a brief mental warfare. He knows he's not in any position to say anything useful right now, but he has to say something. Information or pride? Duty or truth? He takes one look at Levi's eyes, lifeless, cold, eyes that have murdered over a dozen people so far and don't feel an ounce of remorse, before instinct takes over and Eren’s hounding out, “Stop killing innocent civilians! What’s your motive? Are you working alone? Where are the other bodies—”

“Woah, now. Not too much at once, yeah?” Levi cuts him off, laughing. Eren grows quiet with a frown. “You really want to know more about me?”

His face scrunches up with those words, and even more so with having to answer it in that particular way. “Yes.”

“Say my name,” Levi says, and Eren becomes silent at that. The gun draws ever closer to his head. “Ask me again in that sweet voice of yours.”

Eren’s hands, still raised above his head, ball into tight frustrated fists, and Levi smirks visibly at his discomfort.

“Tell me,” Eren concedes, voice flattened, “...Levi.”

By now, Levi has crept up so close to him that the gun is now lodged right in the space between his eyes. Eren has half a mind to swat the gun to the ground but suppresses the urge, knowing how large a risk that would be. In a contest of speed he would be the loser, and he doesn’t want this to end with a bullet in the pits of his skull and Levi walking away having added yet another body to the pile.

Because he knows Levi would leave pulling the trigger on him to simple reflex and reflex alone.

“Your skin looks nice up close.” Levi trails the gun down his face and around his cheek. The sensation makes Eren shiver more than the rain has. “How would it feel if I were to touch it, I wonder?”

Levi is so close now, looking up at him with eyes so dark they look possessive and his body hovers just inches away from his. Eren can feel heat permeating off him, and it’s less of a warm comfort from the rain and more of a cautionary burn like putting a hand too close to a stove counter top.

Levi keeps the gun as well as his eyes trained on Eren as he reaches a hand into the recesses of Eren’s jacket to worm around for the police badge he knows is tucked away in there.

When he finds it and pulls it out, Eren reasons that he's sufficiently distracted and moves his hand to catch Levi's wrist in a fit of sudden unannounced rage for touching his badge. Levi is quicker, quicker than Eren suspected he'd be, and doesn't have time to react to all of Levi's body weight slamming him against the brick wall of the alleyway, the gun indenting painfully all the way into his cheek. Eren gasps, feeling the beginnings of a concussion forming and warm liquid dripping down the back of his head that he knows for sure isn't rainwater.

“You wanna fucking play, officer?” Levi grits, keeping a hand fisted in the collar of Eren’s jacket and an elbow digging solidly into his rib cage so hard it chokes him. “’Cause I wanna play.”

The stars from the blow haven’t cleared from Eren’s eyes yet, so he’s barely registering Levi bringing him down to kiss him harshly. His eyelids feel heavy, not even knowing if what's happening right now is real or some abhorrent hallucination his swimming mind is conjuring up. But he can't deny how hot he feels, how nice he now feels, and he’s definitely being burned now.

Before he has time to protest though, Levi is biting past his unwilling lips and circling a tongue into his mouth. It licks through to the roof of his mouth, playing with his tongue, pressing to the back of his teeth—everywhere it can get as Levi breathes hotly into him. Eren’s breath is stolen away so quickly he doesn’t even have time to think.

A knee comes to rest in between Eren’s legs, prompting him out of his reverie when it kneads against him and then shoving him back into the dreamlike state when the feeling begins to overwhelm him. His gasps are swallowed by Levi’s mouth, and he wants to say his body is kept immobile by Levi pinning him down but he’s not even sure if he'd be able to move again if Levi were to let up. He’s adequately distracted though, having to heave a breath every time Levi circles his knee against his crotch. And every time he manages to take a whiff of Levi’s scent that’s not masked by the murky smells of rainwater he feels even more intoxicated. It's almost to the point that he’s sure he doesn't want this to stop.

The sky is thundering and the rain is pounding down so loudly around them that it turns Eren’s senses into one dull continuous static. His police jacket is waterproof and has kept him dry thus far, unlike Levi who had been standing out open in the rain in just a fancy suit that in no way is meant to get wet. But Levi presses himself against Eren so close, with such fervour, that it’s getting the front of his dry shirt completely soaked now. The gun falls away somewhere, Eren’s not sure, but it’s no longer being pressed to his face because Levi’s face is now there, so agitatingly close, and Eren can barely think of anything else.

He’s so caught up in it, he’s not even aware of the exact moment Levi pulls away from him to laugh. His knees are wobbling, back leaned slack against the wall, and trying to get enough oxygen in his deprived lungs to prevent from getting any more lightheaded than he already feels.

“I wondered what you would look like if I did that,” Levi tells him, not looking the least bit affected at all by this whole thing that’s made Eren’s own heartbeat increase tenfold. Levi steps back to put the gun he's still holding in the back of his pants, inevitably concluding Eren to no longer be a threat to him. “I’m not disappointed,” he says with an elegant flirtatious smile.

"Why..." Eren starts to say because it's the only thing he can think of to keep Levi here and talking.

"Why?" Levi ponders, cocking his head mockingly to the side. "Why do I kill? Or why did I kiss you?"

Eren coughs, the remnants of migraine starting to settle in more heavily. "Why did you kiss me...?" And then Eren starts shaking his head, realizing that was not the question he wanted to ask.

Levi only shrugs. “I wanted to go farther, but I’m not exactly prepared, you see,” Levi says with a somewhat mournful edge to his voice. “Don’t worry, I will be next time.”

Eren doesn’t have anything to say back, doesn’t know if he’s even able to say anything with his mind twisting and turning and blocking out any semblance of sense. Levi's a serial killer and he's a police officer, and those lips must have been poisoned with the way his mouth feels like it’s on fire. The rain does nothing to be able to douse them.

The last look Eren sees is Levi’s disturbingly cheeky smirk before vanishing out of sight, leaving Eren behind with a dead body and an arm to throw over his face trying to catch his breath.

He realizes with a sulk that his police badge was still taken.

-

The next time, the only thing Eren thinks is that coming alone again was a mistake.

_I thought I could handle him._

He’s thinking this as the hand slicks him up ever skillfully, fingers spreading him open deep inside his ass as he strains against his own handcuffs clipping his wrists together behind his back.

It had happened so fast, Eren wants to die of shame.

This time, they’re in a deserted parking lot beside an even more deserted warehouse, with Levi pressing him up against the hood of his own police car. The car is still running, evident from the vibrations Eren feels against his back and the heat it permits cascading through him.

True to his word, Levi came prepared this time. His fingers are already wet with copious amounts of lube, coated during the time he was kissing Eren senseless a little while earlier. Eren’s pants are halfway down his legs, Levi placing himself in between the gap and his crotch. Levi smiles down at him.

"You look beautiful."

Eren fights the creeping blush coming onto his face in an attempt to look distant or apathetic, at the very least if he can't get out of this. It's hard considering he has two provoking fingers shoved up his ass and doing what they will with him.

Levi is having none of his obstinancy, leaning forward to trail his lips down Eren’s neck and licking along the way, fingers pressing and rubbing into Eren meanwhile. He remains silent in an effort to savour every one of Eren's muffled whines and murmurs his throat tries so desperately to clamp down. Levi seems to work even harder and more efficiently to try to get them out, revelling in them when it works. He sucks on Eren's neck, pulling on the skin with his teeth and leaving marks that are sure to be visible as sinfully bright splotches for everyone to see, and this is probably exactly what Levi wants.

"Where do you like it?" Levi prods, stretching Eren open with harsh nudges, roughly squeezing in another finger before Eren is fully ready and making him lose himself in the feeling, eyes watering and lust-driven. "Or do you like it everywhere I touch, my dirty police officer? Getting off on the hands of a criminal?"

Eren has to clench his eyes shut with the pain, pulling on the handcuffs that are no doubt chafing his wrists by now. He wants to shut Levi up by punching him in the face or something beacuse the things he's saying are infuriatingly embarrassing, none of which Eren will ever want to admit are somewhat true.

“Say something,” Levi coos, tone amused and all too gentle. “Does it feel good?”

“Fuu-ck...” Eren’s about to say, but Levi must have known crooking his fingers just so at this precise moment would jerk Eren so badly that he cuts himself off with breathy moan. He can’t believe Levi managed this so quickly, finding that spot having only barely touched Eren for the first time. “Y-You.. ah...”

“That’s what I wanted to hear.”

Levi is somehow satisfied with that answer, playing now with the insides of Eren’s ass and drawing out moans that Eren didn’t even know he was capable of making. He feels his face redden with immeasurable amounts of shame and embarrassment when he hears himself echoing in the emptiness of the parking lot, sounding so pathetically wanton and desperate and needy. He regrets it most of all when he hears Levi sniggering derisive laughs at him, smiling and scraping teeth against his collarbones.

“So eager,” Levi teases, using his thumb to rub against Eren’s perineum and making him jump. “You want me to give it to you, Officer Jaeger? You want to be fucked hard by me, I know. It's because you know very well you can't fuck me over with the law.”

Eren doesn’t want to dignify that with a response, growing more frustrated by the second. Though, he knows he can’t even answer at all with the way his throat is choking out groans at a million miles a minute.

"Look at you, your hips don't stop," Levi says, voice low like silk or velvet, and the sound caresses Eren's ear with how deep it reverberates through him. "You're a filthy desperate mess. You want it bad."

Levi slows his fingering to a stop, and Eren realizes with the utmost humiliation that his hips indeed keep moving against his will. They thrust up uncontrollably, looking for stimulation, craving the feel of Levi's fingers when the loss of comfort begins to hurt. He's so hard his cock must be leaking like crazy, and the thought alone of knowing Levi is watching him in such a state only makes him moan.

It seems Levi can’t wait for a decent answer from Eren because he pulls his fingers out, scraping his nails against the skin of Eren’s walls and making him suppress a whine. Eren lies there hearing the clinking of Levi’s pants being undone and the zipper pulling down. Out of the blurry peripherals of his vision, he sees Levi palming at himself slicking himself up with the lube that he grabs out of nowhere and then throws haphazardly back to the ground. For a minute, Eren is able to breathe in the crisp air and gulp in cold breaths down his drying throat. The rumbling of the car engine beneath his back does wonders to distract him from what's to come. It’s heating him up, contributing to the sweaty mess he already knows he’s in.

He can't find it in him to feel anything more than frustration, though. Levi touches him so harshly like he's running out of patience, yet so gently like he doesn't want Eren to hate him. He pushes Eren into a state he wants him to be in, telling him what he should be thinking and how he should be acting, what he _is_ thinking and what he  _is_ acting like. Yet Levi knows the unalterable depth of the difference of their positions in society and uses it as a crutch, in fact as an _incentive_ to keep doing what he's doing. He does what he wants, and yet asks Eren if he wants him back. He kills drug lords, gang leaders, innocents, identities whom they haven't yet determined, while knowing that Eren will always be the one to come looking for him. Because Eren is the only one who does.

Like right now, Levi still whispers as softly as ever into Eren's ear, "Are you ready, my love?"

And he stops moving, stops time, stops everything for Eren. Waits for Eren to say something, denial, approval, anything. Eren knows the difference between right and wrong, had been taught it for years, had it shoved in his face during training, had it carved into his very being so he could carry it around with him forever to enforce it to the world. Not only that, but the fact that killing is wrong is so intrinsic that it doesn't even need to be reiterated more than once to the average person. Yet this most basic concept, this very concept that the person in front of him so clearly violates, has violated more times than the Supreme Court will be able to deem a legitimate sentence for, somehow means nothing right now to Eren because he whispers back,

"Yes."

And all of a sudden, Levi shoves himself inside him and Eren yells out. His back is arching off the hood of the car while he hisses in pain and Levi only pushes in deeper and deeper, farther and farther. Eren doesn’t have anything to grab onto, thrashing uncomfortably at the intrusion and swears fallling from his lips.

For some reason, Levi silences him with another kiss, fisting a hand into his hair to drag Eren’s face up to meet his. It’s sloppy and messy and wet, and he covers Eren’s mouth so fully and for so long that Eren begins to grow dizzy, pushing back against him in protest. Levi doesn’t let up though, filling him up to the brim in more ways than one, making him feel so full and not in control and unable to run away.

When Levi leans back, Eren is panting again. The kiss, somehow, succeeded in making him forget just slightly about the pain between his legs, and the insurmountable stretch that it causes. When he looks up at Levi with glassy eyes and tortured lips, he has one more thing he can't get out of his mind.

“What...” Eren starts, taking a moment to control his erratic breathing into an in-and-out concentrated drawl. Levi is looking at him, impatient and irritated but willing to listen. “What’s your motive...” Eren manages to get out.

Levi looks about ready to laugh again, but refrains to a simple snort. “Is this really the time?” He gives rather supporting evidence to his argument when he snakes his hand down to grasp at Eren’s cock throbbing between his legs, and grips it so hard it releases a yelp out from him.

It's sad how easily Eren forgets about everything and just enjoys the feel of Levi's hand on him. The hand is small but strong as it circles the base of his cock and starts to pump, force-feeding him pleasure. But Eren is persistent, knowing rather dimly in his mind that if he doesn’t get an answer now, he won’t get one later. Not when he’s afraid he’s going to be so far fucked out of his mind that he won’t be able to think or see or even perceive Levi walking away from all this yet again. And Eren needs answers.

Eren struggles once more against the handcuffs, wriggling his arms and squeezing his knees around Levi's hips.

“So dedicated to your goddamn job."

Levi rolls his eyes, attempting to shift himself into a better position, one that has his hands splayed on either side of Eren’s head. Levi’s face looks down on him, crunched with a look of disdain at having to appeal to Eren’s wants, with his bangs curled from the sweat around the sides of his eyes. Eren won’t tell him that this has nothing to do with his job, though.

But then Levi sighs in what seems like defeat. “Alright, I’ll tell you.”

He waits, building up an incredibly long pause as he leans forward to hover his face ever closely to Eren’s and almost knocking their noses together. Eren can't help a blush, thinking briefly that Levi’s face, despite it being his face, looks rough to the touch and the skin is intermixed with scars. His eyes are hard, like shattered pieces of coal. His lips are dry and chapped and calloused, and Levi must have caught him staring because those lips turn up in an all-knowing grin.

“My motive is…” Levi trails off. He licks the corners of Eren’s lips playfully and then rests his forehead atop his as he finally says, “…Nothing.”

Eren is more confused than angry at this misleading and rather anti-climactic conclusion. He's wondering if that's code for something, or if Levi is just outright lying. “What?” he starts.

But Levi is done talking, pulling himself back until the tip of his cock hangs precariously at the edges of Eren’s ass. Eren is about to protest, Levi’s answer having asked more questions than given answers, but before he’s able to form a quick enough cohesive thought, Levi thrusts back into him with a deep grunt that’s already lost in the sea of moans that Eren lets out.

“It’s true,” Levi continues, starting a pace that Eren is only just able to keep up with while half-listening. “I haven’t got a motive.”

Eren keens, back arching before he's gasping out, “But all those people.”

“It’s fun,” Levi states simply. He snaps his hips in and out of Eren, keeping his eyes fixed on the erotic face that Eren now makes, which consists of his mouth half-open in multiple silent moans and eyes blindly transfixed on nothing at all. “Do I need a reason to live?” Levi asks.

Eren’s not sure if that’s a serious question. In fact, he’s not sure if it’s even a question Levi wants answered at all. Eren can barely think, barely comprehend anything that’s happening around him when all he can focus on is Levi’s cock pounding away into him.

“It’s…” Eren tries, stopping when he feels one thrust hit particularly hard and forces stars to gather in his eyes and all the muscles in his body to clench simultaneously. “It’s not… living... when others are dying for it.”

Eren had barely thought through that sentence, mind feeling so utterly wrecked, that it might have just come out of him on instinct.

But Levi reaches out anyway to push up the sweaty strands of bangs on Eren’s forehead. “I don't care,” Levi says, continuing to rock himself against Eren’s body. “I do what... makes me feel alive.”

Eren is half gone, but he still manages to hear the pause Levi makes and knows, gladly, that Levi is on the brink as well. But that response is about as coherent a response as he’s likely to get because Levi begins to groan above him, opening his mouth to pant out hot breath that drags over Eren’s face. His jaw then clamps together when Eren constricts so tightly around him that he falls to his elbows on the car and shivers almost violently.

" _Fuck_ , you feel good..."

Eren’s just about had it. He’s been pushed to the edge and back, and strung so far along that he could snap at any moment. He wants to come so badly, can feel it pulsating deep in his gut, as the warmth continues to rack up and down his body without letting up. He can feel Levi’s pace push on faster and faster, an unrelenting force that electrifies him and sends his back into an arch whenever his prostate is assaulted. He can just barely hear the continuous low growl settling in the back of Levi’s throat as Eren begins to chant words like a mantra  _please please harder faster more_.

In a fit of passion, when he knows he’s just about to go, Eren lifts himself up to smash his lips against Levi’s. Levi is surprised, but starts kissing back quickly. They lock together in a mingle of rough biting and sporadic sucking, because neither of them can think right now but all they need is contact.

Eren finds now more than ever that he desperately wants to wrap his hands around Levi’s neck, and Levi must have read his mind because he somehow manages to unlock the cuffs freeing Eren from the restraints in the midst of fucking. Eren doesn’t think too hard about it, immediately reaching forward, grabbing him, pulling him, fisting through Levi’s hair to hold him close. Levi is pushing him back down against the hood of the car and aligning their bodies together, never stopping the rhythm, and it feels so good and right and warm.

When they separate, Eren is shaking. “Coming… coming…” he repeats, and Levi’s not too far behind.

“Come for me, Eren Jaeger,” Levi just barely has the time to rasp out.

Eren hears the dirtiest moan suddenly come from Levi, and feels the inside of his ass fill with hot warmth as Levi’s seed spills inside of him. It slicks up the sides of Levi’s thrusts as he continues to drag out his orgasm with a long tight groan. Lev's face is pulled into the most erotic expression, one of vulnerability and totally lost in delusion, and Eren feels the start of his orgasm come just from that.

Not long after, Levi’s hand is flying over Eren's dick and stroking it to completion, desperate to have his name on Eren's lips during the crux of his high. And it is, when Eren comes.

The pleasure shoots through Eren's body, jolting all his senses with a sparkling heat. He shudders, feeling the coursing through his veins, as Levi slows and drops himself onto Eren’s heaving chest once he’s done. They’re both panting hard, and Eren briefly looks down to see the top of Levi’s head resting just below his chin, looking oddly endearing.

Levi pulls out after a bit, moving before Eren can fully get back to his regular senses. Eren has so much to say and none of the energy to say it. So he doesn’t, opting to lay back and shut his eyes. It's a passing thought, but he figures he’ll welcome it if Levi decides to kill him right then and there.

But Levi doesn’t, still laying on top of him unmoving. His head rises and falls along with the slow steady intakes of Eren’s breath.

“Wish we could do this more often,” Levi says melancholically. Eren tries to remain optimistic.

“Y-You’re under arrest,” Eren wheezes out. He says this despite not having any will at all to move nor does he have any idea where the handcuffs are.

“Still going on about that?” Levi laughs once more at him. “I love when you’re feisty.”

Levi leans over to do something, and Eren’s hardly aware of what it is before he hears a clicking sound and Levi getting off of him. Eren sits up to realize with a start that his hands are handcuffed behind his back once more.

“You—!”

He's more than miffed as Levi steps out from between his legs. But he has the good grace to pull both his and Eren’s pants back up, for which Eren is at least grateful for. He can do nothing but watch Levi pick up his suit jacket from the ground and dust it off slightly before throwing it over his shoulder. He gives Eren a clean smile.

“I’m a killer, but I’ll never kill you. So, rest assured.”

Eren struggles against the cuffs despite knowing there’s no use. And he vows that no matter how long it takes or how many tries, he’ll bring Levi in. No matter if it takes months, years, decades, or centuries—he’ll show that metallic heart of Levi's justice.

“I'll see you again soon, my dear officer,” is the last thing Eren hears fading into the distance.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i added part 2 because eh. there's no porn in this tho

“You have no idea what happened?”

Eren shrugs like it’s a rehearsed movement. “I have some idea,” he says.

“Elaborate, please.”

“It’s hard.” Eren holds his head in his heads, hiding what no doubt would look like the most unconvincing face he would show thus far to the commander. “It happened really fast.”

Erwin just looks concerned. “You weren’t drugged, were you, Eren? You don’t have some kind of memory loss, do you…”

“No!” Eren blubbers, not wanting to look even more incompetent than he already does. He tries to look up thoughtfully. “He had a gun. He killed the victim with it. Must have run out of bullets because he came at me with a knife instead…” Eren trails off, trying not to give obvious signs of lying. “And then he roughed me up a bit, but that’s it.”

It’s purposely vague enough that Erwin gives him an even more deeply questioning look, but Eren can’t be sure if the cumulating silence means the commander suspects something about Eren’s story or not. Eren tries to pull off a look like he really just doesn’t want to talk about it, which is definitely a look he can pull off. He’s not a rookie officer which means it’s all the more mortifying the fact that he got taken advantage of so easily, and by a criminal no less. Eren’s face burns at the thought.

“Well,” Erwin finally lets out, jumping Eren to attention. “As long as you’re not hurt. I know I don’t need to remind you of this, but you should make sure to let someone know of your whereabouts so you don’t charge in headfirst—”

“Sorry,” Eren mumbles over him, not wanting to hear that which he’s heard dozens of times. He decides against his first instinct of challenging the commander with an outburst of _I know_ because it would probably prompt an even longer spiel on how he doesn’t know and how he doesn’t listen, and chances are he’ll also get some off-handed quotes from the employee’s handbook and maybe even the police officer’s handbook. And he’ll listen half-heartedly, waiting for the tell-tale signs of _You’re better than this_ and _Be careful out there_ before he’ll thank the commander and leave whilst having not absorbed anything he just heard. Eren doesn’t get any of that spiel this time around, though.

“Don’t turn this into a game of tug-of-war with him,” Erwin tells him instead. The serious nature of it surprises Eren enough that he does keep it filed away in his brain.

“Okay.” Eren nods solemnly.

“You’re dismissed.”

The rest of the day, Eren has to endure through annoying wisecracks from annoying co-workers wondering why he was called into the commander’s office so dauntingly. He doesn’t really blame them when he walked into the office, skin littered with bruises. Any other time, this would earn some sympathetic looks, or at the very least polite ignorance. Looking like you just got your ass handed to you, the office usually makes an effort not to make a big deal out of it, save for the silent judgement.

However, by now Eren was a special case, or at least as special as anyone who’d been on the same active case that’s been hitting the news for months now can be considered special.

“Did you say hi to Levi for me?” Jean sings, coming over and smiling like he’s just waiting for Eren to reach up and poke out both his eyes.

“Shut your mouth,” Eren croaks, voice still hoarse from the recent screaming (kill him) last night, and hardly in the mood as he sits down at his desk to rub his eyes.

“Okay, alright, alright. What’s the body count hitting now though? Twelve?”

“Seven.”

“Ohh hoh. That’s a lot less than I thought.” Jean leans back mockingly, as if he really is surprised. “What did lucky number seven look like? Chopped up limbs? Hung to the ceiling by his thumbs?”

“Do you ever take your job seriously?” Eren can already feel his eyebrows crease together on their own out of frustration.

Jean leans over the desk and ruffles Eren’s head like some kind of cat. “This job needs people like me,” he tells Eren with a lightly-trimmed smile.

“This job needs people like you to shut their fucking trap.” Eren swats the hand away, opting to ignore whatever spews out of anyone’s mouth, including and especially Jean’s, for the next two hours so he can get through the paperwork gracing the top of his desk.

Eren’s barely looked down but he already sees Levi’s name come up more times than necessary. He hasn’t told a single soul what happens between them every time they meet up. Especially doesn’t want to think about that one specific time they met up (his ass clenches at the thought), or what will probably continue to happen when they meet up again in the future. Eren shudders, and not in the good way.

Because he remembers liking it. He remembers wanting more. He remembers going delirious being held in those arms: strong enough to hold him up against a wall and lithe enough to swivel a gun to and fro between his fingers without having it shoot a single wasted shot.

Eren feels himself go hot just from thinking that.

It’s stupid, and not only is it shameful but also asking for disappointment. This isn’t some forbidden love story. This isn’t some star-crossed lovers, or anything romantically-inclined at all. Why is he thinking with the word ‘love’ anyway? He’s an officer of the law and he can’t be loving— _lusting_ —after someone against that law.

Levi is someone who they ( _they_ being the officers on the case, the public, the media, and essentially all the information they’ve collectively gathered so far) know absolutely nothing about other than his first name and the fact that he’s got several definite infractions against him. He’s 160 centimetres, possible European descent of unknown exact origin, and specified as armed and extremely dangerous. But those are just things written on his file.

Eren is the only one who’s seen him on more than one occasion up close and in person. He can vouch for the nonspecifics, things like the fact that Levi always has heavy eye bags the size and contrast of a typical panda bear’s. He has wrinkles around his eyes and crinkles on his forehead that seem to never disappear, extrapolating that he likely gets less than the standard 7 hours of sleep and probably kills people because of it.

He also has refined reflexes, superb hearing, and more than excellent eyesight. He kills and moves cleanly, making sure not to leave waste in mess or movement. The only thing unclean is his speech, which can switch like a light bulb from suave to sardonic as soon as he’s got Eren held up against a wall and his neck in between his teeth.

In fact, the only time Levi’s face is ever making any expression other than not-amused-at-all is when he’s extremely amused. When the corners of his mouth stretch and his lips upturn into the grittiest smirk, looking like he’s got everything in the world, including Eren, under his divine control.

Eren can also confirm that Levi changes clothes often. If he’s not in a stylistic suit and smelling like sharp cologne and expensive liquor, he’s in a smooth leather jacket and smelling like mint tea leaves or scented air freshener. Eren can almost see him sneaking his way through luxurious hotel restaurants, hair slicked back so they don’t recognize him, and ordering food by highest price only to skip out on the bill and scurry out without anyone noticing.

And when Levi comes home for the night—wherever his home is or if he even has a home—he’ll sit in just a white sleeved dress shirt rolled up to his elbows, sipping at a cup of hot tea while inspecting the shiny pistol in his other hand and wondering who is next victim is going to be…

Eren jolts at his desk, suddenly blinking hard and fast. He realizes that his breathing has upped quite a bit, and he breathes sharply through his nose trying to regulate it. The stack of work on his desk has yet to be touched.

That was definitely not something Eren should be thinking about, not something he should be fantasizing about. These aren’t things he can just freely share with the rest of the crew on this case, either. For starters, he knows for a fact it would be nothing less than downright humiliating and riddled with bias if he were to mention something like how Levi smells. And for reasons beyond him, it also feels somehow intimate. He feels somehow special for being the only one to know these things about Levi. Eren knows he fails as a police officer.

Before he has time to fully recover from the shock that is thinking too much about a serial killer's evening wear, Jean is coming around again and looking strangely at him.

“Yo, Jaeger.”

That stupid greeting has yet to leave him since his training days.

“What,” Eren says as evenly as he can before his patience can roll off the edge of a cliff and leave this world forever. “Say it fast. Natural selection kills off the stupid first.”

Jean pretends not to have heard him to instead look contemplative, jabbing a thumb underneath his chin in an obnoxious thinking pose. “You know, you can always leave this case whenever you want. If it’s really bothering you.”

Eren looks up, feeling somehow thwarted. This is the most concerned Jean’s ever been with him. It’s surprising and a little unnerving, to be perfectly honest. Not that Eren never took Jean to be the sentimental type. Which he actually never had.

Eren is hesitant in his response, almost prompting Jean to start looking regretful that he ever asked in the first place. But before he can start grovelling again, Eren takes another breath in.

“Thanks, but I have to keep going,” Eren tells him bluntly enough that Jean starts looking regretful anyway. But he walks off with a shrug and a _Suit yourself, if you want to die_.

Jean doesn’t know it, but Eren promised himself he’d do everything it took to bring Levi in after all.

-

It turns out, ‘everything it took’ includes having to deal with sporadic Levi text messages that bother Eren more often than not. They come spread out all through the day and all throughout the night, mostly at night. It’s a mystery how Levi managed to get a hold of his number, but then again Eren doesn’t want to know the creepy stalker-like methods that Levi tends to develop when it comes to him.

Sometimes the messages seem to come in either teenage-like phrases sounding annoyingly short and clipped, or surreal statements that sound like they were ripped straight from a Murakami novel. And sometimes, somehow, a mix of both at once. Eren doesn’t know what to think, so he never replies.

 _\-- What’s it like after a long day, beautiful? Have you taken a good shit yet?_ is what comes today.

Eren’s staring at his phone at eight o’clock in the evening, having just come back from work and feeling close to falling asleep already.

He’s tried putting the number in his contacts but it would be no use when the number changes every time, also eliminating any chance at tracking the whereabouts of the phone and consequently Levi. It’s almost like Levi takes the phones of his victims for the sole reason of just to text Eren, but it’s more likely as a typical precaution. The former would have been an absurd amount of kills even just to think about, with the amount of texts Eren gets.

Five minutes later, the closest in time these text messages has ever come, he receives another text with a startling ding of his phone. It’s from the same unknown number, perhaps not surprising that Levi hasn’t ditched this phone yet.

_\-- Come and get me._

Eren sits up at that, scrolling down the message to see a starch picture of a map and an arrow atop the cross-section of two streets. Eren recognizes those streets, being only a ten minute drive from his apartment.

It wouldn’t be the first time Levi’s given away his location in order for Eren to stumble across him. Although, this method is questionably more direct and decidedly more suspicious.

It could be a trap, Eren tells himself. Remember what Erwin said, he repeats in his head. It would be plain stupid to walk right into this yet again. How many times has he blindly decided that he would be able to handle it all on his own whenever he met up with Levi?

And yet, he’s already shrugging on his jacket and grabbing his keys. For some reason, this doesn’t seem like an invitation into a trap nor a taunt of any kind. It’s also asking for death the way he’s going.

_\-- I hope you’re hungry._

Eren gets this message while in his car driving at top speed, or as fast as top speed can go while in an almost bumper-to-bumper drag through the streets. He almost gets into an accident checking his phone for while braking in the middle of a packed intersection, maybe contemplating those words for longer than necessary before a stray of honking jerks him to step on the gas. He never considered Levi would kill him like this.

He arrives at the destination in an even seventeen minutes, which just so happens to be a restaurant, a very classy fancy French restaurant. Eren doesn’t know if he should be more surprised at the gold-plated door handles or if he’s actually over thinking it and Levi really just meant a side alley way to meet beside the restaurant like how they usually meet where Eren would get his ass handed to him, in more ways than one. But there aren’t any alleys for the next block and the blue ticker arrow on the map clearly hovers above this location.

Eren stares at the fact that the restaurant has a red carpet leading into it, and he’d almost come here dressed in his heavy-duty law enforcement jacket which definitely would earn some side eyes. Instead, he has on just a plain fall jacket which is not much better, as he strides past the glass doors with a cautious edge to his step and a rather useless pat down of his straggled hair. It’s not like this is a date or anything.

“Name?” the receptionist asks once Eren’s made his way inside without looking like he’s the one whose the criminal.

“Huh,” he says unintelligibly, freezing on the spot. Of course, this fancy place would be reservation-only or invitation-only, or whatever the hell kind of redundancies rich people make up in their spare time. Eren hadn’t actually prepared for this, but he decides to hell with it. “Levi…?” he tries.

He didn’t think it would work, giving just a first name, but it does somehow, and another server motions for him to follow her through the restaurant.

He has half a mind that the server is actually leading him to his demise. Maybe as soon as she’d heard ‘Levi’, they knew the right person to bring round to the back to get beaten the shit out of, or worse killed because he knows too much. Eren carries a gun just in case, stuffed in the back of his pants and hidden by the length of his jacket. He’s not quite sure he’s ready to shoot to kill, though.

But he’s ambushed in a different way, suddenly stopping in his tracks when the server motions her hand and Eren looks over.

It’s a table right in the middle of the room for everyone to see, with Levi sitting casually in a plain tux and a folded up menu in front of him. He glances up at Eren, almost pretending to side eye his non-existent watch as if to tell him just how long Eren has supposedly been making him wait. For some reason it works, and Eren feels guilt more than surprise or anger or any other more rational response to this situation.

“Err.”

“Sit down,” Levi practically barks at him, voice more gruff than Eren last remembers it being.

Regardless, he sits down opposite Levi as if he had just decided sitting casually with a known serial killer was normal. Levi’s hair is flattened, bangs falling down his face in a droop instead of styled and lifted up like they show in the pictures and the last time he was hanging over Eren. The server whisks away saying something about more water.

“Are you going to just sit there or were you lying to me when you said you were hungry?” Levi asks, folding his arms together.

Eren sits, unperturbed. He doesn’t touch the glossy-looking menu. “Uh, I didn’t even reply to that text.” Or any of them, for that matter.

Levi scoffs like he was expecting that kind of stupid answer. “And yet you still came.”

Besides the obviousness of that statement, Eren still wonders about that. Indeed he came rather quickly and looking questionably unprepared in doing so, but wouldn’t simple intuition tell Levi that a criminal giving away their whereabouts would invoke an officer showing up, regardless of a free dinner? Actually, this wouldn’t be a free dinner because this is not a date. Definitely not. Levi’s probably playing him after all.

“I came to bring you in,” Eren concludes, eyes sharp.

“At least let me buy you dinner first?” Levi phrases that like a question, like the way he always has to ask Eren for permission every time he’s about to do something that they both know is cause for skepticism in this more-than-platonic but less-than-anything-else relationship.

“No.”

This is not a date.

“But it’s traditional,” Levi insists with smouldering eyes and a confident lean forward on the table. He leans a chin on his open palm, almost looking like he's about to twirl a piece of his bang like some flirting schoolgirl. “It’s traditional to buy dinner for the one you like.”

“You crossed that line when you fucked me last night,” Eren says in low voice, ignoring that casual confession the best he can before his cheeks can flame up. He tries not to draw too much attention to them by throwing around profanity and loud whispers in such a nice restaurant.

“You enjoyed it, didn’t you?” Levi smirks, clearly getting a kick out of this.

“I didn’t.”

“You were screaming my name though? Oh so loudly, too.”

“I _wasn’t_.”

“Your little ass was squeezing around me so tightly…”

“ _Stop. Please_.”

“And you kissed me.”

All of a sudden, Levi’s not accusing or judging or even smirking in the least. Eren doesn’t know if it’s the trick of the light or his own eyes being blind sighted, but it looks almost like Levi is blushing. The hue on his face coupled with his gaze turned away towards the couple’s table next to them says embarrassment, as if of all the dirty things he calculated Eren to have done on that night couldn’t compare to that one completely impulsive, completely and utterly romanticized moment that neither of them could have foreseen.

Now that Eren remembers it, it wasn’t the most chaste kiss. In fact, it was downright sloppy with too much tongue and their breathing was about as erratic and sexy as two drowning dogs. They were both hanging on the brink of orgasm after all, and Eren blames most of his actions on that sexual insanity.

But despite that, Eren still doesn’t know what he was thinking, can hardly come up with a reasonable explanation for losing himself so spectacularly back then. The only thing he’ll allow himself to accept is that his mouth was lonely and he needed something to fill it.

“Just… please,” he tells Levi one last time, feeling the anxiety well up in his chest and the frustration squeeze his eyes together. He tries to breathe normally, and he’s not even sure why he’s feeling like this. “It happened once. It won’t happen again.” Can’t happen again, more like.

“You’re right, that was uncalled for.” Levi sighs, leaning back in his chair in defeat. He’s almost earned a point of forgiveness until he says, “The dinner should have come first.”

Eren’s hands grip the table unconsciously. “None of this should have come at all!” he half-yells half-whispers, feeling the sickness in his stomach fuel his sudden rage. “You’re a twisted delusional killer, and I’m an officer of the law. I’m on the side of justice. We can’t be fraternizing like this!”

It’s like Eren is trying to convince himself more than anything, as if the boundary between their positions in society is the only thing that separates them, the only thing that poses a problem. He wants to call Levi out on real things that matter, things like childhood traumas or personal vendettas, _killer_ things, _law_ things. But there’s something that stops him. All Eren can think about is his unresolved feelings, feelings that for some ungodly reason don’t include hatred, disgust, or even a mild sense of duty.

“You should try the lobster here,” Levi says vacantly, ignoring Eren in favour of picking up the menu and regarding it with a bored glance-over. “It really is exquisite. I think you’ll like it.”

“Are you really a psychopath or are you just doing that on purpose?” Eren accuses, shifting his gaze downwards.

Levi seems to willingly contemplate that for a bit. He puts down the menu to steep his fingers together on the table and lean his face in for unnecessary dramatic effect that, frankly, both annoys Eren and scares him.

“What makes you think I can’t be both?”

In the distance, there’s a single faint sound of a shrill police siren and it has Levi’s eyes darting to look at the front doors before they're narrowing down at Eren. It seems Levi already guessed Eren had called for backup. Eren did indeed call the station earlier while on his way here and informed them of the situation to come to the location immediately once he subdued Levi.

Levi’s eyes look almost betrayed. Almost. He doesn’t move a muscle before he’s standing up in a single movement instantaneously, reflexes on par with what Eren would expect. But the situation is not in his favour and Eren is faster.

“Don’t move.”

He’s up before Levi is, knocking his chair back but swiftly pulling out his gun and holding it towards Levi’s forehead before Levi can so much as reach a hand into his jacket or take a single step from the table. His grip is firm as Levi slowly brings his hands up, squeezing them together behind his head. There are multiple gasps from the tables around them, and Levi still manages to smile even in this situation.

“I didn’t expect this from you, Eren,” he says, tone pitched with restrained anger as the sirens from outside get louder. “You’ve learned from your mistakes, finally.”

“The only mistake here is you believing I wouldn’t,” Eren bites back, finger hovering over the trigger. Levi catches the tiny movement.

“Are you going to shoot me?” he taunts, eyes locked with Eren’s. He’s trying to rile Eren up. Or maybe he’s seriously wondering if Eren really will end up shooting him after all.

“If it becomes necessary,” Eren says truthfully.

“I would be surprised if you did.”

“That would be the second time today for you then.”

Eren tries not to shake, tries not to flinch with his finger resting on the trigger and alternating between minimal amounts of pressure. He could end it all right now. Prevent future killings, end the state-wide fear and panic of the public, put a stop to the mental conflict that’s been coursing through his brain since day 1 when he was handed a case file filled with pictures of a woman torn apart limb from limb in her own bedroom.

He doesn’t know if Levi really will try to make a break for it, banking on the fact that Eren won’t actually shoot as he tries to run. Levi is overconfident, both of his own skills and about Eren’s flippant feelings that he merely guesses on to suit his own needs.

Or maybe Levi does know? Maybe he knows Eren more than Eren knows himself. He knows everything while Eren doesn’t have a clue. Eren doesn’t know why Levi does this, he doesn’t know what his feelings towards Levi are.

But Eren does know, deep in his chest and heart shattering against his ribcage, that he wouldn’t pull the trigger, regardless.

The next moment is a sudden rush of stomping and table bumping and more screaming from the front. Eren doesn’t have to look up to know what it is; he keeps his eyes trained on Levi. Storming through the door are nearly fifteen armed police officers, spreading throughout the restaurant.

Eren doesn’t know if it was because he was distracted from the commotion or because he let it happen, but Levi is able to reach into his jacket pockets and take out his gun to aim at Eren. The movement was so slow, Levi was practically taking his time, and Eren just let him.

“Do it. I dare you,” Levi says, pointing the gun level with the gun barrel of Eren’s. He’s not smiling anymore. “Shoot. Or I will.”

Eren doesn’t. He’s shaking now, but he can’t bring himself to shoot even when circumstances deem it appropriate now. He’s more than warranted, he’s _obligated_ now, but he stands his ground. He doesn’t shoot and neither does Levi.

He can’t even bring himself to lower his arm once they’re suddenly swarmed and got Levi laid down on his chest on the table, arms behind his back. It all feels like slow motion, and Erwin is there having to forcefully lower Eren’s arm and tell him calmly, “You did well. It’s okay.”

But Eren doesn’t know if he feels entirely okay. Not as he’s having the gun pried from his fingers, and definitely not as he has to watch Levi having handcuffs put on him and being taken into custody.

-

It hits the news that the serial killer known as ‘Levi’ has been brought in, and the people can rest safe.

-

Eren is taking off his jacket, putting his bag on the conveyer belt, and walking through the metal detector. He shows them his police badge and the guard walks away with it telling him to hold on a moment, leaving Eren to stand alone in the empty room beside unguarded metal detectors. It’s cold and silent in here, not making any effort to be the friendliest of atmospheres.

Before Eren can get too comfortable with the crisp white walls, the guard comes back with his badge and letting him in without any further unnecessary questioning.

“We’ll tell him you’re here.”

Eren nods.

He walks over to an empty spot in front of the bulletproof glass, and lifts the old-fashioned telephone receiver off the hook. He’s playing with it in his hands, wondering if it was the right choice to come visit him.

After almost ten minutes, he sees Levi on the other side of the glass walking through the steel-plated door and immediately catching a glimpse of his face as if attracted to it. His face looks impartial, walking over calmly to the seat that’s in front of Eren. He gives the telephone receiver a disgusted snarl before he’s wiping the insides of the ear and mouth pieces  with his oranged sleeve and putting it to his face, looking at Eren expectantly.

“What a surprise,” is the first thing Levi says once Eren has the receiver to his ear. It doesn't come out as surprised as Eren would think, Levi’s voice sounding less than enthusiastic to see the police officer that brought him in here. Despite this, Eren feels a wave of something like butterflies well up in his stomach at the sound of his voice. “Thought you’d have forgotten me by now,” Levi tells him smoothly.

He stares at Eren, slouched over the table, eyes looking the same rusted black colour and dark smudges creasing underneath his eyelids.

“It’s been a while,” Eren says somewhat sadly instead of denying Levi’s statement. He’s hesitant, hoping the grudge Levi has against him isn’t spread too deep. “Six years, hasn’t it?”

“You tell me.”

But Levi is terse, sounding like he’d rather be doing something else than sitting here chatting about niceties. Eren understands. He knows this whole thing is a bad idea, knows he should have just forgotten about Levi after all these years, and listened to Jean and the rest of them telling him he’s got some sick version of attachment theory and to get the hell over it if he wants to live his life properly. It’s not healthy. It wasn’t then, and it isn’t now.

Doing this thing right now is his way of getting over it, and he’s decided that now is the time he should finally stop wondering about things.

“What was your motive?” Eren gets right to the point.

Levi finally looks surprised at Eren, eyes widening just a bit before he’s frowning. He looks like he’s wondering why Eren would come here just to ask that same question that everyone’s been trying to pry from him. “You heard the courts,” he states dully.

“’ _Because I felt like it_ ’ is not a motive. Why did you do it?”

“I told you before.”

“Then repeat it to me.”

Levi’s frown deepens. He looks entirely confused and bordering on annoyance, probably thinking Eren came here just to waste his time when he could be out swindling inmates for boxes of cigarettes or eating crusted mashed potatoes. But Eren is determined, lips hardening into a line as though he's been hungering for Levi’s response all this time.

“Because I want to feel alive,” Levi recites.

“Why?” Eren presses harshly.

“Because those people weren’t innocent,” Levi waves off nonchalantly.

“No!” Eren yells, clearly not getting the answer he wants. His fist clenches the receiver, making Levi flinch with the crisp sharpness of the sound of his voice through the dull air. Eren is seething, “That’s not enough to kill people! That’s not enough to take a life, to take away something that doesn’t belong to you. Those people had places to go, people that cared about them, people that loved them…”

Eren’s voice wavers. He feels on the verge of hysterics, seeming only marginally less insane than the prisoners in this very jail. He doesn’t know why talking like this is so hard to get out.

Levi just stares at him, not looking like he feels an ounce of remorse for his victims or even a sliver of sympathy for Eren in front of him. He just waits for Eren to continue, knowing that can’t be the only thing Eren has to say, and it most definitely isn’t when Eren inhales shakily.

“I need to know you didn’t do it because of me.”

His heart is pounding. It feels like it’s being stabbed repeatedly with the weight of all those deaths, Eren being the reason why Levi murders. Using all those people as an excuse, using murder as an excuse, being the only thing Levi can do to keep meeting Eren over and over again on opposite sides of a gun, and manipulating Eren using smooth words and a half-baked smile just to see the look on his face. It’s so unbelievably painful for Eren to think about.

He can’t tell Levi just how badly it’s been hovering over his head, drilling into his conscience, making him go through sleepless night after sleepless night for the last six years. And Levi is sitting there having no idea what he’s done to Eren.

“Would you rather I say ‘No’?” Levi finally speaks up. “That I didn’t do it because of you? Would you’ve been able to live through these years knowing those people died for nothing instead?”

Levi is playing mind games again, and Eren is so sick of it. He’s sick of not knowing what to think and how to act and having Levi dictate everything to him. Even after six years, he still hasn’t changed.

“Maybe I would have,” Eren tells him quietly. “Maybe I would’ve been able to sleep knowing I couldn’t have changed a thing even if I wanted to. Maybe I would’ve been able to live happily knowing my existence didn’t destroy another’s—”

“That’s a shit fucking pathetic way to think.” Eren is looking up, eyes crossing with Levi’s angry ones. Levi is looking back snidely like Eren had offended him in the most royal of ways. “You’re a police officer. You’re supposed to change things, and yet you say your actions couldn’t have prevented jack shit? Stop your fucking whining. If you didn't want to be a dirt-eating pussy, you should have pushed me away when I got close. You should have kneed me in the crotch when I had you against the wall. You should have said ‘No’ before I fucked you into the hood of your car. You should have run away instead of reach up to kiss me back.”

Eren looks down, knowing and realizing Levi is right with every fibre of his being. He knew somewhat, knew that he’d had all the options in the world when it came to Levi but he chose to push them away. It kills him that he chose to ignore them in favour of pretending to be in this dream world where he didn’t have to take responsibility.

“It was because of you,” Levi says slowly and carefully, face hardening into a scowl like he was forced to say it, but eyes softening like he’s telling Eren it’s legitimate none the less. “That’s all you wanted to hear, yeah? Well you can go on and fuck off to the outside world now.”

Despite the severity of his words, it seems like they lifted a weight off Eren's chest. He'd prepared for this kind of response, knowing Levi and everything Levi's done, and he pushes down the guilt that comes with finally hearing it firsthand, being unable to resist the twisted satisfaction it brings instead.

Levi makes a show of dropping the phone to the table with a loud clatter that hisses through Eren’s ear as Levi pushes himself off the chair to leave.

“Hey!” Eren calls, trying to get through the receiver but Levi is already up and can’t hear a word. “We’re not finished here, Levi! Hey, pick up the phone!”

Levi stares down at him who starts to smack his hand against the glass before banging on it loudly. Eren hears one guard behind him telling him to calm down but ignores them with a wave of his hand.

“Please, one more thing! Just one more thing, okay?” Eren gets up, holding an index finger up against the glass and mouthing the words slowly for Levi to understand.

He stands there awkwardly with the phone still to his ear and a finger jabbing the glass but Levi slowly complies, sitting back down and looking like he’s regretting it all the way through. Putting the receiver to his ear, he gives Eren the most unimpressed stare down, and telling him with his eyes not to waste any more of his time.

“I’m sorry,” Eren says immediately, sitting back down.

Levi looks past the point of laughing as Eren casts his eyes downwards. “What the fuck do you have to be sorry for? For being the one to make me kill? For putting my sorry ass in here? For finally manning the fuck up and doing your job? I ain’t going to place blame on you for any of that, so calm yourself and go live a good life with a clean conscience.”

“I should’ve told you in the beginning,” Eren cuts him off. “I should have told you. But I placed my job above my feelings, and I didn’t man up because I shouldn’t have let this get as far as it had. And I want you to know that there was something—there _is_ something I have for you… And I know it’s stupid to say this now when you’re going to be spending your whole life in here and—”

“Eren.”

He looks up, trying to get a hold of himself. And it’s just in time to see the black abysses of Levi’s irises melt, the corner of his eyes crinkle like night time fireworks, and the half-smile he makes when he knows Eren is looking at him in just the right way.

“I’ll see you on the other side then, my love?” is the last thing Levi says before their time is up and he’s whisked away back through the prison doors and back to life in eternal imprisonment. Eren barely has enough time to hack out an agreement before he’s escorted out as well.

He leaves the darkened gloom of the building, stepping outside to gleaming sun, breathing out and in, chest feeling light, and hoping their time apart is short. He hopes Levi will be able to make it through.

-

A month later, the news proclaims that serial killer and state-wide murderer ‘Levi’ has escaped state penitentiary by simply walking through an unguarded metal detector.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> F U C K.
> 
> i know... it's been like 5 months. so if u want u can just disregard this entire thing and pretend the story ended in ch2, yeah.. i realize this /was/ supposed to end in ch1, and then it /was/ supposed to end in ch2. but this is the actual last chapter ok. THANKS GUYS

He doesn’t tell anyone. Eren doesn’t tell a single soul.

The fact that he’d visited Levi remains a secret, but he already knows how little time he has before it’s a secret blown wide open to the public.

The office as well as the entire police force is chaotic, an absolute mess, as soon as the news of Levi escaping rings through Erwin’s telephones, and Eren is the first to be called into Erwin’s office.

The way Eren acts here is crucial. The expressions he plasters on his face, the height he lifts his eyebrows to, the way he holds his arms up only to slam them down disbelievingly on Erwin’s desk, taking a demanding step forward as if he couldn’t hear properly because it’s the first he’s heard of this, and what he heard couldn’t possibly, possibly be true.

“Yes,” Erwin confirms, setting a heavy eye against Eren as if carefully watching him. “He’s out.”

“How?” Eren asks as candidly as he can, hoping it comes across more as ‘ _How could he possibly get out?_ ’ rather than ‘ _Do you know how he got out?_ ’

Erwin denies another call to his desk phone by pressing a button on its keypad and ignoring the incessant blinking that follows. “They don’t know. Not yet at least,” he says, putting a palm exhaustedly to his forehead.

“Really? Nothing?” Eren presses.

Erwin cautiously shakes his head, not looking at Eren anymore. “They found his cell door still closed and he didn’t go to evening roll call. No markings or signs of struggle. They’re in the midst of questioning the other prisoners right now, but so far they have no leads on when or how he escaped.”

Eren’s breath is hitched in his throat.

He still stands over Erwin’s desk, eyes going right through his boss, and willing the cloudy haze of his mind to demonstrate the absolute state of distraught Erwin has to believe he’s in right now. It really isn’t too far from how he truly is; scared to death that they’re going to find out, and that the next time Eren will be in this office might just be in handcuffs or having his head ripped off by Erwin, or both.

Erwin rubs at his face, exhaling out a frustrated sigh that Eren really does relate all too well to. “You were the lead man on the Levi case,” he informs Eren like he’s forgotten. Eren could never forget.

“Yes,” he says shakily, and hopes that shakiness is mistaken for true terror.

“I’m going to ask you to sit this one out.”

Eren blinks. And for some reason it feels like he’s just taken a blow to the stomach. “Why, sir?” His voice might have come out more pleadingly than he intended.

“Until there’s more information, you are not to go looking for him,” Erwin says firmly.

Eren quiets down – to the point where he doesn’t even feel like he’s breathing.

“You are not to gather any evidence on his whereabouts. And you are not to respond to any of his attempts to contact you, otherwise you inform me about them immediately. Do I make myself clear?”

Erwin’s words are like sharp staccato, trying to wedge themselves into Eren’s brain. It’s like Erwin knows, knows Eren can’t handle it, knows Eren’s track record of disobeying him profusely, and knows somehow or another that Eren is only listening to the surface value of everything he’s saying.

Erwin’s looking out for Eren in more ways than he reveals in his words alone. He knows that Levi is dangerous and that Eren is determined to the point of recklessness. And yes, Erwin had seen Eren successful in taking Levi in, but he’s also seen the absolute wreck Eren’s been in the last few years. The constantly darkened eyes, shadowed cheekbones, the sluggishly delayed movements on the field like Eren always has something on his mind, and the noticeably vaguer disinterest in most if not all aspects of his life since Levi had been put away. It’s a wonder Eren hadn’t been let go and managed not to get himself killed.

Erwin had taken pity on him letting him stay for this long, and this is how Eren’s going to be repaying the debt.

“Do-Do you think I’m a child?” Eren stutters quietly, feeling almost numb and uncaring about talking back to his superior at this point. Erwin looks up at him, but Eren continues haughtily before he can say anything, “I’m not going to go after him.”

He says it as clearly as he can, standing his ground as much as possible without tripping and falling, and it seems like an eternity before Erwin takes it with a slight nod of his head.

“Okay,” he says, only trusting Eren because there’s nothing else he can do.

 “Okay,” Eren repeats. He can breathe a little bit better now.

Erwin doesn’t say anything more, and Eren takes it that he can leave now before he experiences another mild heart attack in here.

But before he can get a hand on the knob of the door, Erwin calls once more to him, “Do you have anything else to report while you’re here?”

It’s said low and deadly, and makes Eren halt in his tracks, back still turned to him.

Erwin knows, or he knows something, or he has suspicions of Eren. His accusatory tone couldn’t be more blatant. He knows Eren is hiding something from him, and Eren himself had known Erwin was taking note of his every move this whole time. Looking for fishy eyes, a hesitant breath, anything.

But Eren had played his part perfectly. And it’s especially topped off when he replies with a cold, clipped, “No, sir. Nothing to report.”

He turns the knob to leave, just as he hears Erwin let out a sigh and another defeated, “Okay.”

And knowing he’s made it out of there alive, without another call back and without anything else keeping him there, Eren leaves the entire HQ, trying to deny the thoughts all the way that tell him his growing manipulation ability is already catching up to that of a sociopathic serial killer’s.

-

Eren’s considering retiring from the force. Actually, he’s more than considered, he’s contemplating handing in the resignation letter he’s already written tomorrow. There’s no way he can work like this anymore. If anything, this has only been long overdue.

Eren’s phone buzzes from the coffee table and he checks the message with hesitant fingers, still thinking in the back of his mind what Erwin said before about ignoring any of Levi’s attempts at contact. But it’s put to rest, somewhat, when all he sees are some lines from Armin saying,

_\-- Are you okay? You left early. Get some rest if you can._

Eren physically relaxes his shoulders even if his beating heart hasn’t slowed down yet, and he finds himself being thankful it’s only Armin as he types out a reply saying he’s fine and yeah he will get some rest.

If it was anyone else, most notably Jean, Eren would probably take his resignation letter to the office right now.

His phone buzzes again, and before he can get to it, there’s a knocking at the door. Soft, eerie knocking that Eren’s not sure if he wants to answer right now. He could ignore it and pretend to be sleeping or still doing overtime at work, and his landlord or whoever it is can just wait until next week to ask him about uncomfortable things like overdue rent.

But he rubs his eyes and gets up to go answer it anyway, phone still in his hand and using the glow of the screen to light his way through the hallway.

He looks through the peephole of the door, and can’t see anything so he purses his lips and has a hand on the doorknob.

But opening the door anyway, Eren thinks he’s due for that heart attack he’d put off earlier.

“Hey there, officer.”

Eren’s frozen in place, blood running inexplicably cold, and the phone in his hand vibrates again. It gets his attention as his eyes dart to look at it unconsciously. It’s not from Armin, it’s from an unknown number, and it’s uncanny the way it reads exactly the same as what Levi says in front of him—

_\-- Miss me?_

“Miss me?”

It’s crazy and insane because Levi’s somehow already changed out of the orange and into a casual-formal suit, one without a tie and with an untucked shirt, but still a suit. His bangs are cut short and no longer messy and all over his eyes, and his undercut has even been trimmed to a neat buzz again.

He leans against the doorframe looking prideful and smug like some gangster waiting on a poor, innocent family’s debt that they have no hope of paying back without the sacrifice of their internal organs, and a thought runs through Eren’s head that maybe Levi is here to kill him.

Eren moves to slam the door closed but Levi makes his way in easily, using his foot and the force of his hand and his smirk to keep it open. And Eren has to stumble backwards, inadvertently letting Levi waltz right in.

“Oh, Eren. Why do you look so freaked out?” Levi chuckles lowly. “You knew I was coming.”

“What—”

He really didn’t. That text message had come a literal five seconds before Levi showed up at his door.

But then again, Levi could be thinking in a more broader sense. The fact that he’s out of prison. The fact that he knows Eren’s phone number. His address. His work hours. Everything. It did seem like only a matter of time before he’d come here looking for the one person he’s wanted to see all this time.

Levi’s backing him up into a wall, and without anything else to do, Eren throws his phone at Levi’s head.

“Come _on_. Are we going to keep playing games?” Levi practically laughs at him, with a swipe of his hand at the phone and sends it to the floor with a denting crash.

Eren has yet to say a single thing, but all he can think is that he can’t let Levi any closer, can’t let him in, can’t let Levi push and prod him anymore, otherwise Eren might just lose his mind like he’s already done so many times before. And he knows that Levi is not one to listen to any meaningless excuses he has to offer.

Eren reaches into his kitchen, frantically grabbing a knife from the shelf around the corner and behind the wall, and flings it as hard and as fast as he can in Levi’s direction.

But it’s as he expected. Levi’s reflexes are sharper than the edge of the butcher knife now lodged into the front door as Levi dodges inhumanly fast, and moves in swift as lightning to grab Eren’s right hand to shove him into the wall behind. Eren hisses, more out of shock than pain.

 “Not playing very nicely, are we?” Levi whispers coyly against Eren’s cheek, brushing his lips over him, and Eren lets out a shuddering breath. “You never liked answering me unless I ask politely, you know, Eren?”

“Don’t say my name.” He can feel his eyes watering.

“Oh? How cruel, Officer Jaeger …”

“Not that either.”

Levi chuckles hot breath against Eren’s neck and down his chest, and it almost feels like Levi is touching him all over just from that. He somehow knows exactly which buttons to push, the way to push them on Eren’s skin. Or maybe he knows that whatever he does will without a doubt make Eren shiver violently like a kitten in the rain.

“My dear officer, then?” His growl is like vibrato.

Levi takes his time lacing his fingers with Eren’s hand still against the wall by his head, squeezing affectionately, and Eren already starts to feel hot, torn apart.

“What are you doing here?” Eren quivers.

But then Levi brings his other hand up to graze Eren’s cheek with it, looking into his eyes, and making sure that Eren can’t look away even though Eren so desperately wants to.

“It’s been a while,” Levi says, gentler this time. Like he truly means it. “I really did miss you.”

His tone becomes brittle with all the hardened years in captivity and solitude. The years that he spent alone, unable to touch Eren, unable to feel him, whisper to him, see him. Truly see him. Not through a thick sheet of bulletproof, soundproof glass. If it was anything like Eren had been through, it must have been hard. Painful.

“Me too,” Eren whispers in the end.

The tears don’t come, even though Eren feels like crying. Maybe they’re already dried up from all the times sitting alone in his living room waiting for a text that would never come. All the evenings he stood underneath the spray of the shower that remind him of the thundering night they first kissed. Or the countless sleepless nights beneath the covers of his bed that feel like the time when they were on the hood of the police cruiser and Levi had held him so close like he’d never let go.

And now Levi is finally here, right here in front of him, and his mere presence and proximity is able to take Eren’s every thought away.

“Let me kiss you,” Levi says like he’s been longing, dying to say those words.

And Eren replies easily, breathlessly, “Yes.”

Levi moves his hand to the back of Eren’s neck, keeping the other still intertwined within Eren’s fingers and brings him down to kiss him slow and soft – like Levi’s trying to make up for all the other times they were in a heated rush and only after each other’s throats rather than each other’s lips.

They don’t move, not really, just staying there gently and calmly as Levi leans into him, pinning Eren to the wall. Levi opens his mouth, just a little, just to breathe small puffs into Eren’s mouth, and it’s good – calming, warm, and spectacular all at the same time – because Eren needs the air that’s been stolen from his lungs. And he can only do so much as arch himself in and squeeze his hand back.

“I don’t know why,” Eren starts, speaking against the stillness of Levi’s lips. “Fuck, I don’t know why… I’ve wanted this so much.”

Levi leans back, taking himself off of Eren to stare at him with an expression hard to describe. With a murderous glint setting its glare against something fragile and innocent, it’s as if something’s been itching to light itself and burn deep inside Levi all this time. As if he’s been waiting to hear what Eren’s just said for such a long, excruciatingly long time.

Levi brings his hand down from the wall, the one with Eren’s hand still in it, to his mouth where he brushes lips against the rough edges of Eren’s knuckles. “They don’t know anything, do they?” he murmurs.

“They?”

“The authorities.”

“No,” Eren answers, albeit dismally. “Not yet.”

 “Yet…” Levi echoes.

Eren bites his lip, still sort of feeling Levi there and then looking off to the side when that mere thought can make him forget about the sheer hopelessness of the situation they’re in.

“They’re going to find out eventually. It’s only a matter of time.” Eren wishes things were easier. He doesn’t know how Levi could live like this because it certainly isn’t a feeling that Eren thinks he’ll become accustomed to. “Once they question the security guards, look at the security footage, find out I was there…”

“Eren,” Levi cuts him off, and Eren looks up with slightly panic-stricken eyes. “Come with me.”

“Come with…?” Eren feels shaken with those words, with everything, but he’s calmed at least a little once he remembers Levi’s hand still in his, keeping him sated and grounded. “Where?”

“We’ll leave.”

Levi is serious. Like he’d been thinking about this for a while already.

There are times when Levi does nothing but play around with him, taunt him, for his own amusement. Times where he takes sick enjoyment in pushing Eren to the edge – seeing him whine, desperate, begging. Taking pride because Eren becomes this susceptible, mouldable thing, and Levi is the primary cause of it.

But then there are the times when his eyes get another look, searching for answers within Eren’s eyes, and his own darkness begin to melt away into a fade. A look of pure devotion. A look that says he’s made up his mind already, but he’ll wait for Eren to make up his.

And this is the look that despite all the manipulation, despite all the lies and the killing and the lack of care for anything in this world other than Eren, Levi can give this one look and Eren can somehow beyond all reasoning forgive him.

Can trust him.

“Okay,” Eren says, looking around at the suddenly dim, lonely corners of his apartment. “What should I bring?”

Levi lets go of his hand and it falls away to his side. “Leave behind whatever you don’t mind missing.”

But if Levi’s with him, Eren doesn’t think he’ll miss a thing.

Levi’s comment is oddly vague, and Eren doesn’t know if that means Levi wants to leave for just a little while or if he plans on never coming back. Never coming back to this apartment, this city, this country even.

But Eren thinks whatever it is, maybe leaving this place will be good. This home has deteriorated into little more than a cesspool over the last few years, and it’ll be good for Eren not to remember all the times he felt uncontrollably and inconceivably lonely in here.

He feels bad that his landlord will never get his overdue rent after all.

“We’ll use your car,” Levi says, waiting by the door as Eren finishes packing up his things into a duffel bag and saying his last silent goodbyes to a place he has no clue if he ever even wants to return to.

Eren just nods, realizing that Levi has nothing on him, not even a shotgun slung on his shoulder that Eren has to blink away the illusion for.

“Should I drive?” he asks.

He places a couple tens on the counter, even though it’s not nearly enough. Not nearly.

 “It’s your car. Of course you’re fucking driving,” Levi practically barks at him as he holds the door open for Eren to go through first.

-

It’s half past 1 in the morning when the radio is turned on and the car is driving along the main street.

“Do you mind if we stop somewhere first?” Eren brings up, looking over to Levi because there’s nary a car on the road and he can afford to divert his attention towards something a little less mind-numbing.

“Our first stop and we’re barely out of this shit-for-nothing neighbourhood.” Levi rolls his eyes and Eren feels himself shifting in his seat. But when Eren doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move the wheel or his foot across the pedals at all, Levi has to voice out loud, “Sure, go ahead. You’re the one driving.”

It’s starting to sound like Levi has been wanting to drive this whole time.

Eren pulls up to the sidewalk in front of the City Police Headquarters, and it’s dark but he already knows the doors are locked and nobody’s there and he can tell Levi is beginning to get tense anyway.

“What—”

“Don’t worry,” Eren says abruptly, knowing exactly what’s going through Levi’s mind and trying his best to hurriedly reassure him before he ends up getting sucker shot in the head by some hidden pistol Levi’s probably carrying in the side pocket of his jacket. “I’m not here to turn you in.”

 “Thought you might have changed your mind or something.” Levi just leans his elbow out of the open window, looking out. “Lying to deceive me wouldn’t be the first time for you,” he murmurs.

Eren laughs a bit, reaching to the back seat to grab his bag and rustle through it. Taking out a crisp white envelope that makes Levi turn his head to stare, Eren says, “I wouldn’t.”

“Bullshit.”

“…Huh?”

“You lied just now.”

Eren can already feel himself defensive, knowing minutely that he has absolutely no argument. So he ends up throwing his bag back over to the backseat in favour of opening the door and stepping out of the car. “Be right back.”

“I’ll be here.” Levi scoffs.

It takes thirty seconds to run up the property, one minute to decide where to put the damn resignation letter before finally slipping it into the mailbox, and another thirty seconds to run back to the car. The back of the letter has ‘ _Commander Erwin Smith’_ on it, so hopefully it’ll be able to get into his hands eventually.

“You left your keys in the ignition,” Levi says almost immediately upon Eren’s return, before he even lets Eren slam the car door shut.

Eren doesn’t really know what to say to that, though.

“Yeah, so?” He huffs an indignant breath.

“You didn’t consider that I would just drive off and leave you here?” Levi’s arms are crossed as he continues to stare outside.

 Eren sits still for a moment because he really didn’t think about that at all. Maybe it’s because Levi could have gotten a car easily on his own without coming for Eren’s. There was literally no reason for him to come back to Eren, and therefore no reason to drive off without Eren. Absolutely none.

“Not, really. No.” He shrugs.

He starts up the car again, and Levi begins rubbing frustratingly at his eyes, not unlike a movement former boss Erwin would have made whenever he’s trying to deal with something stupid that Eren’s ended up causing unnecessary headaches over.

“You trust criminals too easily,” Levi mutters out the open window, and Eren almost has the urge to laugh, really laugh, at that.

“Should’ve told me that six years ago,” Eren says with a lilted smirk as he speeds through an empty intersection without even a look both ways.

“Maybe I should have.”

“Maybe then I wouldn’t be on the run with one sitting in my passenger seat.” Eren pretends to sigh, but he’s still sort of smiling.

-

It’s 3 AM, and Eren’s not quite sure where they are, driving down unoccupied highways with all the windows open and the radio turned on high.

Levi’s the type to get irritated with whatever’s playing if it doesn’t suit his taste, fiddling with the dial to change the station not even a minute into the song, usually. So when Levi doesn’t move to touch the radio at all anymore, Eren can tell with some weird kind of satisfaction that it’s a song Levi likes. Or recognizes. Or can tolerate, at the very least. It’s never usually anything Eren knows, though.

“I can’t help but wonder.”

Levi says that so randomly and out of the blue that it makes Eren subconsciously slow down the car, just in case they get to wherever they’re going too fast and Eren kind of wants to hear everything Levi’s got to say without any stops, breaks, or years in between.

“Hm?”

“I can’t help but wonder what made you change your mind,” Levi says slowly.

Eren looks over questioningly at him, paying less and less attention to the road and instead the anticipation of his heart is speeding up more and more. “About what?”

“About letting me out.”

Eren is silent for the longest time, not even realizing until now that this is a thing Levi must have been fighting with in his head, wondering, thinking less and less of Eren as the days and nights go by because there’s no way Eren would be thinking about him. Eren must have forgotten about him. Eren must have moved on. Eren must be happy now.

Is what Levi must have been thinking.

But he’s wrong, of course. He has no semblance of a clue what Eren has been through for him to think so unfairly like that.

“Because,” Eren begins to explain, feeling suddenly pried open, “I couldn’t help thinking you looked so cold.”

Eren looks over and Levi has concerned lines crossing his forehead, like he’s trying to deconstruct what Eren really means in that entirely too-vague sentence.

Eren’s talking about the day he found Levi sitting on a bed in front of a murdered woman, with blood on his hands and tears on his face, and looking like he didn’t belong there at all. The windows were open and Levi was shivering so badly that Eren had walked over without thinking and slung his police jacket over Levi’s shoulders, telling this pitiable crime-committing stranger that it’s all going to be okay, if only just to calm him down at least for a little while.

It was a wrong move because while Eren was distracted with the surprised and confused look on Levi’s face, he had up and ran, taking Eren’s chance at apprehending a suspect as well as his jacket with him.

Eren’s also talking about the day when Levi had first kissed him underneath the fall of the rain like some trashy romance scene. And maybe the reason Eren had let Levi come so close when he should have been maintaining distance was because Levi was soaked to the bone, clothes sticking uncomfortably to his skin, and Eren had felt just a little bit better when Levi had taken refuge in his lips for warmth.

It was a wrong move because while Eren was distracted for a second time, Levi had snuck a hand in the folds of his clothes and taken his police badge, already knowing the inner workings of Eren’s jacket, like Levi’d wanted so badly to have another piece of him before running off yet again.

And Eren’s also talking about the mere thought – maybe even just his imagination that got the better of him – of Levi sitting on a lumpy mattress, losing count of the days in chalk on the damp prison walls, and huddled up and into himself with a single blanket that would in no way be as warm as Eren’s arms that were wound around him that day Levi fucked him on the hood of the police cruiser.

And that was an especially wrong move, to think of such a thing, because Eren would never be able to get it out of his head from then on – the fact that there’s nothing left of him for Levi to take. Because Levi is a criminal and he’d made damn sure that he’d stolen absolutely everything from Eren before he saw himself to jail.

But there’s no way he could tell Levi any of this.

Lest Levi already knows, himself.

 “So, you felt bad for me?” Levi concludes with a played off scoff once Eren says nothing more. “Don’t make me fucking laugh, you dipshit.”

Though, he’s not laughing.

And Eren thinks that maybe, just maybe, if in that fancy French restaurant on the day of Levi’s arrest it had been just a little bit colder, if the AC had been turned on, if Levi had just winced once or twice with the cold metal of the gun in his hand, Eren’s sure he might have ended up letting Levi go.

And Eren realizes just now that Levi had voluntarily given up his ability to run away by sitting in this car.

“I was already dead long ago,” Levi starts to say flatly. “If I died right now, it wouldn’t matter. If I died today, it wouldn’t matter.”

Eren’s heart seizes up.

 “That’s what I thought.” Levi sighs. “And I don’t know when it was that I started thinking I wanted to see your face again.”

He sounds gentler now, Eren notices. And Eren’s face and his cheeks and ears already heat up just from knowing that.

“I wanted to see that face,” Levi continues, “Your face full of passion, determination. Strung with desperation, panic _, horror_. Anything and everything that I couldn’t possibly think of. I started growing desperate myself, at one point thinking, ‘ _What would you look like if you found out it was me who had been the killer every time?_ ’”

Eren remembers it, somewhat. He remembers the denial when the malicious smile on Levi’s face did nothing to comfort him, the suffocation of fear that watered his eyes and made it hard to breathe whenever Levi got close, and the tight rage in his chest because Eren would eagerly go to make sure it wasn’t Levi at the scene of the crime every time. And he would be wrung with all those feelings of denial and fear and rage every time he tried to block that slick voice from laughing out ‘ _Back again, officer?’_

Eren sits frozen to his seat, glancing over to Levi who’s leaning an arm on the edge of the window and staring at Eren with a tilt of his head. He’s got a glint in his eye, reflecting off the moonlight, and right now Eren has never felt more like inescapable prey, eyed by a predator since before he had even realized.

Levi breathes again. “And then feeling like death today turned into maybe later, and maybe later turned into tomorrow, and tomorrow turned into ‘ _when will I see you again?_ ’ And it was like… you saved me, you know?”

Eren stares grimly through the windshield because in the dark recesses of his heart, he feels the most guilty satisfaction. Knowing he might have saved Levi but at the cost of a dozen others, knowing he had caught Levi’s attention, and apparently nothing else matters to him.

 “Do you hate me?” Levi’s tone becomes slower, sadder, wrought with a sudden subtle tinge of fear that this far in Eren would turn the car around and go back. “Do you hate me knowing I took lives because of you?”

“No,” Eren says.

Levi’s not regretful. He’s not remorseful. He’s not denying who he is, instead merely stating facts.

And Eren has no idea why Levi would be asking him such a question now. Because if all the shit so far wasn’t enough to stir Eren away, freak him the fuck out like it really really should have, there’s no way they’d be driving past fields full of cattle together, half-listening to 80s songs that so casually talk about death in an uplifting mid-tempo.

 “I hate how we could have met under different circumstances… and it might have turned out okay,” Eren says instead, and this is the thought that wracks him with such an uncontrollable shiver of sadness and _what if?_

His left hand slips down the wheel, his other down to rest on his thigh, and Levi reaches over to grab hold of the hand on his leg, uncharacteristically gentle. He squeezes it long and hard, and it makes Eren’s heart swell.

He pulls over, if pulling over means stopping right in the middle of the lane in the middle of the empty highway, and Levi leans back in his seat with a look of utter confusion. _Who cares anymore?,_ Eren says with his eyes. There’s nobody around to crash into them.

But he presses on his caution lights anyway and clicks off his seatbelt to grab Levi’s hand again, not-gracefully-at-all swinging his body over to the passenger side, careful not to hit the gearshift though, and presses himself against Levi, straddling his hips.

“I’m fucking insane,” Eren half-whispers to him. “But I don’t hate you.”

On the contrary, Eren feels the farthest thing from hate. Something entirely, alarmingly different.

And Levi’s eyes search him, holding their hands in their laps between them, looking for doubt or hesitance or anything at all in case the quiet firmness in Eren’s voice is something that can’t be trusted.

But he ends up finding nothing because he breathes out in what sounds like relief and lets go of Eren’s hands to grasp at the fragile bone of his hips to pull him in even closer.

“I’ve killed people and you’re the one who thinks he’s insane?” Levi can actually plaster on a smirk from saying that.

Eren doesn’t think he can laugh at that, though, instead leaning forward into Levi’s touch and feeling himself breathe in shaking breaths. “Just don’t do it anymore,” he pleads.

And then, Levi slows his own breath down to a low exhale next to Eren’s ear. “Okay.”

“I mean it.”

He’s silent before he starts playing with the edges of Eren’s hair, rubbing the palm of his hand and his fingers against Eren’s neck, and Eren feels like he could sit here like this forever, wrapping his arms around the back head of the seat.

 “We’re going to turn out okay, I think,” Levi murmurs into Eren’s jaw.

And Eren has no room to argue that. “You think?”

“Yeah.” Levi hums, and then draws Eren’s lips to his in something searing and hot and promising.

-

It’s only four minutes of contemplative silence and idle playings of hair and sleeves and skin before,

“Eren, what are you doing?”

Eren bites his lip, the part of it that Levi isn’t currently pressing his partially against.

“Sorry… Can I – Can I just, maybe, grind on you for a bit? Just for a while. I swear I’ll get back to driving right after.”

“Fine.”

-

Eren soon ends up leaning his head on Levi’s shoulder before sighing out again, “Sorry.”

“What for, now?” Levi sounds impatient.

“I really did like it the last time,” Eren tosses out quickly, the embarrassment bubbling up inside him instantaneously.

And Levi is almost (almost) outraged. “Oh, what a relief. Like I didn’t fucking know.”

“Shut up,” Eren huffs, knowing Levi is probably rolling his eyes patronizingly at him right now. And then Eren looks down, bites his lip again, and presses his fingers into the seat. “It’s just been a while. Can we…?”

“Do what you want. It’s your car _, mmh—!_ ”

-

They go until the car’s yellow caution lights are no longer bleeding out into the night. The late morning skylight is enough of a wakeup call to notice the sudden gridlock of cars surrounding them, honking for their attention that they’re still parked in the middle of the damn highway. And Eren is scrambling off Levi, scrambling back into the driver’s seat, and stepping on the gas so fast he doesn’t even have his pants or underwear on properly.

And Levi is laughing hysterically beside him, the first time Eren has ever heard him laugh like that.

“It’s so much better like this,” Levi had said.

-

Once it’s nearing 4 PM and Eren is nodding off at the wheel, Levi says, “Let’s pull over.”

“Huh? Do you want to drive?”

“No. I want to get a drink.”

Eren is blinking blearily but they drive on a few miles until they pull off the highway to stop at some bar, some shady middle-of-nowhere looking bar that Levi apparently seems fairly content at pointing out to stop at.

“I’ve been driving for five hours, and you’re the one who wants a drink…” Eren mutters.

“Of course. I can’t let you drink and drive.”

Truthfully, the fancy French restaurant with red carpeting and shiny glass doors seems so far away now as the grizzly outside of the storefront comes into view.

“Since when were you such a stickler for the rules?” Eren points out, easing into a parking spot.

Levi shoves open the car door so fast it was like he was suffocating in here. “Since the fate of my life became compromised.”

“Oh, ha ha. You’re not serious, are you?”

“I’m dead serious.”

Levi slams the door shut as he steps out, and Eren can’t tell if Levi’s joking or if he’s actually becoming slightly more humanistic.

“I’m going on ahead,” Levi tells him.

Eren also forgets to roll up the windows before turning the engine off, and Levi is way ahead, not even waiting at the door for him. Eren doesn’t have much money to snag from the back pocket of his bag, but he takes whatever will cover for a soft drink or two. It might be good for him to take a break from the alcohol, anyway.

Eren walks in the bar and Levi is sitting at the counter, already sipping at a glass of something.

He saunters up to sit in the stool beside him, but before he can say anything—

“So that Levi guy’s out again, huh,” a guy on the other side of Levi says, looking at the raised TV on the wall.

“Levi?” Levi says, amusement tracing the edges of his tone. “What’s he to you?”

There’s no mug shot or picture on the news segment that mentions ‘LEVI ESCAPES’ on a rolling banner across the screen, and Levi clearly takes advantage of this.

“Psychotic fucker, isn’t he?” the man bellows out and Levi doesn’t look like he takes any offense at all from that. “Takes the focus off the rest of us, at least. So I ain’t complaining. Know what I mean?” He laughs.

Levi chuckles as well, and Eren feels his face crumple in disdain. “Careful. He doesn’t target the innocent,” Levi says offhandedly.

“I’m far from innocent,” the man agrees.

Eren could roll his eyes, but orders something non-alcoholic instead to satiate his rising blood pressure.

“I don’t think anyone can claim to be completely innocent.” Levi sloshes the contents of his drink around.

“You think so?”

“I know so.” He downs the rest of his drink, waving over the bartender for a refill. “So we’re all liable to be killed by him,” Levi mentions idly.

“Ooh, how harsh.”

“Reality is harsh.”

Eren doesn’t have anything at all to contribute to this conversation, and why does it feel like this is Levi’s natural habitat? This casual-friendly getting along with gangsters and dirty folk, drinking cheap drinks, and Eren has no idea why he feels left out, feels this atrocious feeling that he doesn’t belong here when Levi so easily does. Maybe Levi’s real place isn’t next to plush carpeting and italic-written menus.

“I have so many things I have to do.” The man grins, turning himself towards Levi fully now and it makes Eren’s teeth grind a bit. He doesn’t seem drunk but Eren can smell the waft of booze on his breath from here.

“Really.” Levi doesn’t sound interested, at least.

“So many regrets,” the man goes on.

“Hm.”

“Do you wanna get out of here?”

Levi stutters in his drink, pausing the glass at his lips. And Eren whips his head to look between the two of them, feeling his blood boil and his hand restrainedly grip the table.

“No thanks,” Levi says calm as ever, not inclined to say anything more as he starts sipping at his drink again. But Eren can’t feel calm when the man scoots over even closer and Levi doesn’t move an inch in response.

“You sure? You don’t want to have any regrets, do you?”

“I don’t make regrets,” Levi says, completely unfazed.

Eren wants to do something, but he can’t. Because while Levi remains sitting, it’s no business of Eren’s to jut in when Levi is telling him with his body language and his tone and his carefully chosen words that he’s got a handle on the situation. He’s calm while all Eren wants to do is take Levi by the arm and drag him out of there, dump him into his car, and drive off.

Because Levi chose him. Levi is his, Levi is _his_. And Eren’s waited all this time to finally be able to say that.

And suddenly Eren has no idea what to think anymore when out of the corner of his eye, he spots a movement Levi makes to the back of his pants, slowly and subtly lifting his jacket to reveal the tips of a pistol he has stuffed right in between the seam and his skin. He lines a finger up and down the metal, teasing it, maybe even teasing Eren because Eren can’t take his eyes off it. It makes him tense with a cold sweat, and the man on the other side hasn’t even noticed anything.

“You won’t regret this,” the man all but promises, confident with unawareness.

“Oh, I think I might.”

And Eren is afraid of what Levi really means when he says that.

He can see Levi sliding the gun halfway out of his pants and it jolts Eren to attention, like some kind of realization of public duty or at the very least remnants of his duty as a previously law-upholding officer.

He wants to do something, but he shouldn’t.

Jumping out of his seat on something that he’s not sure is purely rage or not, Eren is on his feet, wishing he had his police badge ready to shove into the man’s face but he doesn’t because he’d already handed it back to the department along with his resignation letter and he thinks why now of all times?

So, he doesn’t take it out.

He pulls out a knife, instead.

“Back off,” Eren murmurs in a low harsh growl, holding the knife to the man’s throat. “He said no. So back the fuck off.”

Eren has no idea how he’d gotten here. He can feel the man sweating, can feel the man’s thick bulbous skin being sliced by the butcher knife he stole from behind the counter presumably only for slicing lemons and limes before this. The man is bigger than Eren, but only slightly. And Eren can see Levi’s hand moving away from his gun and latching onto his arm.

“Look, I didn’t mean any harm, man.” The stranger even holds up his hands, like he’s submitting to a police officer. But Eren isn’t on that side of the law right now.

“I don’t see it that way,” Eren sneers, holding the knife closer, cutting it deeper. “I should slaughter you right now.”

Levi squeezes his arm and calls his name but his voice is like a static buzz and Eren can barely hear him.

The man eyes the bartender shiftily who looks ready to intervene but doesn’t because this is a trashy bar in a trashy neighbourhood and this sort of thing probably happens all the time. So, Eren doesn’t look at him. He doesn’t look at Levi. He doesn’t care. He wants to rip this guy’s throat out.

“ _Eren_ ,” Levi says more warningly this time, and Eren is startled just a little. “Put the fucking knife down.”

“Not until he apologizes.”

“I don’t need an apology. I’m not a pissbaby.”

“You deserve one.”

Levi sighs, sounding less frustrated and more something else indistinguishable, and loosening his grip on Eren’s elbow to rub it soothingly and affectionately now even though Eren still feels keen on shedding some blood. “I’ll see you outside,” Levi tells him.

He slaps two bills on the counter, enough to cover both their drinks plus a generous tip. Eren eyes the bills as Levi walks away and out of the establishment in a peaceful stride. It’s calm, slightly infuriating because of its expectation for Eren to follow, and Eren reluctantly withdraws the knife from the man’s neck to throw it back behind the counter, making it clatter noisily to the floor. It’s only then that he notices the other patrons in the bar staring at him.

“You know each other?” the man asks him, more crude accusation than curious, and rubbing tentatively at his neck where there’s marks Eren had gone too far to make.

“Mind your own fucking business next time, shitrag,” Eren snaps because he’s got nothing else to say.

He leaves, feeling jittery in his step and eyes on his back. The man somehow doesn’t follow him, thankfully.

Levi is waiting by the car, arms and ankles crossed. “You wanna explain to me what the hell that was back there?” he calls out before Eren is even within normal talking distance.

“I’m—”

He stops in front of Levi, feeling embarrassingly aware of his actions from only moments ago, and he doesn’t really have an answer to explain them. Not really.

“I’m not sorry,” Eren ends up saying because it’s true. He looks away petulantly to the side, and there’s a brief silence when Levi breathes out a harsh exhale.

Eren’s not aware when Levi reaches a hand forward, latching onto Eren’s hair and the back of his neck to pull him in. His lips feel wet and his body feels warm when Eren’s forced to press Levi in and up against the side of the car. Eren bites back, still feeling revved up from earlier, as Levi starts kissing him wildly and all over the place like he’s starving or suffocating, and Eren feels dizzy already. Once Levi lets out a desperate noise, it has Eren entirely overwhelmed.

“What was that?” Eren draws back, mouth and chest still throbbing.

“You’re fucking hot when you’re like that,” Levi says with a grin and quick lick to his own lips.

“Like what?”

Levi just rolls his eyes and nips at Eren’s cheek. “You’re ridiculous. Don’t ever change, yeah?”

And Eren realizes with those words that it’s not that he’s becoming more like a sociopath or a psychopath or more like Levi. This part of him has always been hidden away, a monster buried inside of him, to come out eventually at some point because Eren always had a tendency for danger, a lust for excitement, an inexplicable need for dancing on the line between life and death.

It’s undoubtedly the reason why he became a police officer in the first place. It’s why he so willingly and naively went after Levi , the most dangerous man in the state, every time it was possible. It’s why while Levi would always promise to see him again, Eren would so readily agree – lying in wait as he paced the floor of his apartment and the cubicle of his office for a Levi text message or a Levi sighting report. It’s why when that part of his life was over, when the gears that spun his life of excitement came to a resounding halt, he craved for a replacement and had no idea what to do about it when nothing and no one else was good enough.

 “Don’t cry, my love,” Levi tells him with a knowingly soft caress to the wetness of his cheek. Because even though Eren never fully explains anything, Levi always somehow knows anything and everything he’s thinking.

“Ah, shit.”

But it doesn’t make the tears stop, only makes them fall more as Eren frantically tries to wipe them away.

Because he just feels so relieved for the first time in his life.

-

It’s sunset now, around 8 PM, and they have clear view of the oranging sky as well as the off-road cliff they’re parked next to. Eren doesn’t even know where they are, and he still has no idea of the Levi-approved songs that waft through the open windows of the car from the radio.

“Were you really gonna shoot that guy?” Eren asks, looking over to Levi seriously.

Levi takes the gun out from his pants to store in his jacket so that he can lie back comfortably against the hood of the car with his hands behind his head. “Nah.”

“No?”

“I wasn’t going to shoot him, Eren.” Levi gives him a look and Eren shoots him back a look that says he doesn’t believe one word. “Or maybe I would have if you hadn’t come in, threatened to cut his head off in broad daylight.”

Despite not being sorry, Eren still ends up grimacing.

“So – thanks.” Levi turns his head up to stare at the sky like it’s a promise to try really really hard to be normal from now on. It’s more than what Eren can say for himself.

 “I was… jealous,” Eren confesses as if that’s an adequate explanation to knife a guy over.

“Jealous of some skeevy guy?”

“A bit.”

More than a bit.

Levi seems legitimately surprised at that, and it makes Eren think this isn’t the first time Levi’s been hit on so ludicrously in a trashy bar. He wishes nonsensically that he’d been there all those other times to potentially knife guys in the neck for Levi.

“I wish I’d had my police badge on me,” Eren bemoans, staring off and over the mountain pass where there’s rocks and trees, and no doubt his letter back at the station must have been picked up by now and into the hands of the commander who probably won’t even miss him all that much when it comes down to it. Eren’ll sort of miss Erwin, though. And Armin. And Jean. Jean, kind of.

Levi shuffles around a bit beside him, rustling a hand through his jacket to produce two folded up pieces of leather out of nowhere.

“Here,” he says.

“Those…” Eren squints unbelievably and Levi shoves them into his hand. “Those are my police badges.”

“Yep.”

“You – You kept the badges you stole from me all this time.”

“Yeah.”

Eren is slightly and briefly flabbergasted, not knowing how to process the fact that Levi just had them right there in his jacket. He’d not only kept them, but he’d held them close to him. A piece of Eren close to him, all this time. He wants to ask how Levi managed to save them through the time he’d been in jail, but it’s almost like it doesn’t even matter at this point.

“You…” Eren is suddenly laughing, so hard and for so long, staring at the rust and the water stains and the caked on, dried up blood in his hands. “You don’t even want to know how – how, what my boss’s face looked like. Every time I went in to get these damn things renewed...”

“Throw them away.”

“What?” Eren stops talking as Levi says that, and Levi gives him a hard stare before nodding towards the open cliff.

“Throw them,” he repeats.

“Why?”

Eren’s not sure why Levi’s suggesting such an idea now. Not after what these badges mean to him, the significance they hold just by being in existence in Eren’s palms right now. They hold time and promise and division of status and—

Levi just shrugs, though. “It’s not who you are anymore. And I don’t need them any longer, either.”

That line jolts Eren’s heart – makes him want to laugh and cry and throw up all over again because Levi’s simultaneously right and all that’s right in the world, and whether this thing right now is supposed to be therapeutic or not for him, it’s maybe what Eren needs after all.

So, Eren throws them.

One after another over the cliff, he whips the badges into the air.

Because maybe after all this time, Levi’s the one who’s shown him justice, a certain kind of justice, instead of it being the other way around.


End file.
